Relationships are hard no matter who you are. A relationship can be especially hard when your partner identifies as transgender, when a person's gender identity does not match their biological sex. There are lots of issues that can come up when one [or all] people in a relationship identify under the transgender umbrella (transexual, bigender, genderqueer, crossdresser, etc).

Legalize Trans*

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start

So, Trevor and I have been together for a few weeks now. I have decided to start writing down my thoughts, worries, feelings, fears, and experiences during the transition/our relationship. This blog will be an almost complete account of what I am going through. There are some details that I will be, of course, leaving out of the blog because they are private. I am going to be very honest. I have been doing research on this subject and there are very few books that cover the subject of dating/being in a relationship with someone who is transgender. I found one book called "My Husband Betty" which is about a woman who is married to a transgender woman (a man who is living as a woman). I am considering turning this experience into a book. Names would, of course, to be changed to protect those that I don't want to out.

Trevor & Me Halloween 2010 (Clark Kent & Lois Lane)

Here is a story leading up to our relationship:

October 7, 2010

For LGBT Alliance we went to the campus movie theater and saw "The Kids Are Alright". It was a really good LGBT themed movie starring Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo. After the movie my crush (Kayla), her roommate (also named Kayla), and several other of the queers (we refer to ourselves as "queers" in the LGBT community here) were standing outside of Atwood smoking and talking about the movie. Eventually it was just down to me and "The Kaylas", as they were called, standing outside. They were ready to leave so they walked me halfway to my dorm building. Now, I've had a crush on Kayla for about a month or so. I'm trying to not act like a blithering idiot in front of her as much as possible. I got a hug from her that night, a few weeks before that we had held hands as a joke and she asked me for a hug once, which I obviously gave her. When it came time to part ways I got a hug from Kayla. I pretty much skipped back to my room. I was so giddy. I told my roommate about it and squealed and giggled.

Alright, here's a summary of our relationship thus far...

October 22, 2010:

We went out on a queer outing to Molitor's Haunted Acres, a haunted hayride/maze just outside of town, after drag practice. We were in line for a couple hours and I kept floating between standing next to Kayla and with some friends that I came with. The night before a girl that is involved with the LGBT community at school (Sarah K) had expressed to me that she had "been in love with Kayla for three years", in my mind pretty much trying to 'claim' Kayla as "her property" and telling me to effectively step off. She had permanently fixed herself at Kayla's side for most of the wait time. As we got up to the doors my friends, Zach and Jill, somehow blocked her and pushed me right into Kayla's back. Then we went out of the door and got onto the hayride. Kayla said, "Who's gonna sit by me?" and I quickly yelled "Me!" before Skp could claim the spot next to her. I was really freaked out and nervous about the whole experience and the Kayla held out her hand for me to hold. I felt like my brain had shut off for a few minutes. Then Sarah K sat on the other side of me and held my other hand, which was a nice gesture but I was so focused on the hand that was holding my right hand that I wouldn't have noticed if the left one had gotten cut off with a chainsaw. I then spent most of the hayride with my face buried in Kayla's arm. :) Then we got off of the hayride and went to stand in line for the walking portion of the experience and Kayla was still holding my hand, but this time, Sarah K had come on the other side and was holding the other hand. Eventually I let go of Kayla's hand because I wasn't about to fight over Kayla with some girl. That's certainly not the way to make a good impression, especially with Kayla who was as my friends have said "is the nicest person on the planet". I went through the haunted house, well the first one any way, with Jill, Zach, and Ali and proceeded to have some kind of nervous breakdown. I started sobbing and had to be removed by security. When the rest of our group came out Kayla walked up to me and gave me a hug because I didn't make it through the maze. After the hug we were talking. During our talk Jill and Zach noticed that Sarah K walked up closer to Kayla and started rubbing her back. They told me about this after and I got super angry. But I was so giddy about the hugging and hand holding that I let it go.

Saturday October 23, 2010:

This was the night of Club Red, the homecoming dance that was put on by the University Programming Board. I spent about three hours getting ready because somehow I had convinced Kayla to come after she had said that she didn't know if she wanted to go [Note: I just found out that she actually said she didn't know if she was going to go to see if I was going and if I would try to get her to go, very sneaky, baby]. I went over early to help set up but most of the work was already done when I got there. Her roommate Kayla saw me first and made a big fuss over how I looked and then Kayla turned and looked at me and smiled and made a comment about how I looked. I don't remember exactly what she said but I know it was good. I spent the rest of the night with Kayla and my friends that had come to the dance. Kayla and I were dancing during the dance and I kept wanting to kiss her but I was too afraid. Midway through the dance I got into a fight with Sarah K via text message (very mature of me, I know) and ended up blurting out that I liked Kayla. She looked surprised and said, "Wait, you like me?" to which I quickly replied "Yes" and tried to change the subject. After I blurted out that I liked her we were standing outside and she had her arm around me and told me that she liked me too. I accted surprised but I already knew. At this point I knew that she liked me because she had told my friend Sammie who told me [and apparently she knew I liked her because I had told K and K told Kayla], so we both knew that the other one liked us but were waiting for the other one to make a move. After the dance we all (Me, Kayla, Zach, Jill, Kenzei, Danielle (my roommate), and Amanda) went to Perkin's and I rode to the restaurant with Kayla and we held hands. :) After we ate we went back to my dorm and watched movies in the lounge. Kayla and I cuddled the whole time and both eventually fell asleep. It was about 7 AM and Kayla was going to go home. I walked her to my car, we hugged, then we kissed. Did I mention it was raining at the time? I know, so adorable. The kiss was perfect, in the rain, and there was no awkward "Oh my God, are we gonna kiss?" moment. It just happened. There were sparks, on my end. I haven't asked the other party involved.

Sunday October 24, 2010:

I spent this day with my friends because Kayla was at work. Around 5 PM I got a phone call from Kayla (roommate) asking if I wanted to come over and watch "Rocky Horror Picture Show" with her, her fiancee Holly, and Kayla [The Kaylas hadn't seen it before]. I agreed. Kayla (roommate) picked me up at 9:30 PM and took me to their place. I hung out with her and Holly until Kayla came home from work. Kayla and I cuddled on the couch while we watched the movie. We kissed a few more times. After the movie was over Holly went to bed and Kayla (roommate), Kayla and I talked for a while. Then, after a while, Kayla (roommate) went to bed and Kayla and I kept talking. She ended up asking me about what being in a relationship meant to me and we talked about that. Then the subject came up that she had never been asked out before so I turned to her and said, "Kayla, will you be my girlfriend?" She said yes and we kissed.

[Note: I asked her out at 3:30 AM on Monday but I'm including the story in Sunday because that's when it started.]

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About Me

I'm Addy. I'm 20 years old and currently a freshman at Saint Cloud State University in St. Cloud, MN. My life is pretty hectic and complicated right now so I've decided to blog about it to get my thoughts out of my head to make them easier to deal with. Feel free to read, or not.